Could Have Been Worse
by semnai
Summary: Unsurprisingly, the FBI and a serial killer manage to ruin the end of Frederick and Will's date.


This fic is part of consultingtimelord's A Type of Ever After ChiltonWill universe/series, which currently consists of the fic Scars, which you might have read. She actually beta'd this for me, cause she's awesome like that. GO READ IT if you haven't already. Its a really cute ChiltonWill fic.

However, you don't need to read it to enjoy this one.

* * *

Will and Frederick were on their way home from dinner when Will's cell started vibrating from inside his coat pocket. Will glanced at Frederick briefly and then the car's dashboard clock before taking it out and answering it. Both Will and Frederick knew there were only two people who regularly called him and one of them was in the car. So they were aware of exactly who must to be trying to reach Will this late on a Saturday night.

"Jack," Will said shortly, his smile almost instantly melting away to a grim line.

Frederick, who was driving, continued to glance inquiringly over as Will listened to Jack talk. He couldn't hear what Jack was telling Will, other than the low drum of his voice, but he could guess what was being said. He noticed tension that had been absent for hours slowly seep back into Will's body.

Will appeared to give the smallest of sighs. "Right. Well I'll be there as soon as I can." He lowered the phone, and glanced apologetically at Frederick, before looking out the window.

"Murder," he said simply, before chuckling humourlessly. "They need me to be there, of course." He looked back at Frederick, giving him a small smile. "I'm sorry, I know you were looking forward to—"

It was Frederick's turn to sigh. "I figured, Will. I get it, I understand. Where do you need to go?"

Will sat up in his seat, turning his body towards him with a bemused expression. "You don't need to take me there. Just head home, and I can—"

"That's absurd," Frederick scoffed. "You're already in a car, I can take you. Just tell me where they need you."

"Fine," Will said shortly, but reached over to place his hand over Frederick's, which was resting on the clutch. Frederick looked down at their hands, almost in surprise. Three months of dating and he still wasn't used to the little things.

Will entered the address into the car's GPS, and sat back for the half-hour drive.

"So what happened?" Frederick asked hesitantly after several minutes of comfortable silence.

Will grimaced. "Man killed three college students, you don't even want to know what he did to the bodies—"

Frederick opened his mouth, curious, but Will shook his head quickly. "No, you really, really don't, but he was spooked by a local police officer in the middle of the act. Ran off. They still haven't found him, but obviously want to do so immediately, so—"

"Thus, they need you," Frederick finished. Will nodded. "You'll go off and catch the bad guy again, what a hero," he said sarcastically. "Oh Will Graham, what would the FBI do without you?"

Will smirked, but waved him off. "Same as they always have."

"—Pathetically badly then."

"Frederick…" Will said warningly, but still with a hint of a smile.

Frederick made an incredulous noise. "Whatever you say then. Oh, here we are. I assume its where all the flashing police car lights are?"

He parked in the first available area, and Will pulled on his hat as he stepped out of the car. He dipped his head back in though, his eyes meeting Frederick's. "You can leave if you want, I can get a ride home from Jack."

Frederick shook his head. "I'll be fine. I have some emails to catch up with anyway," he said, pulling out his phone.

Will nodded, and shut the door. Frederick watched as he adjusted his wool coat, before walking towards the building where most of the fuss was centered around. He could barely make out the figure of Jack, pacing near the front door of a shadowed red brick building, which was never a good sign. No one looked very comfortable, and for once he was glad he didn't know the details.

Turning up the car radio, Frederick began to drown out the slightly unsettling activity around him as he sorted through his work inbox that he had been avoiding for quite some time now.

Twenty minutes or so passed before he became aware that something was… off. Wrong. He couldn't say how he knew this but it was a gut feeling. Intuition. And boy did he pride himself on his intuition. He glanced up, squinting through the darkness and flashing lights to the people outside the building. Several officers were standing together; he could swear he had heard some shouting just a minute ago. Frederick got out of his car, and hesitantly walked up to the nearest police officer that was standing outside the yellow caution tape. He nodded at her in greeting, and then towards the building. "Something else happen inside there?" he clumsily asked.

The police officer sized Frederick up. Frederick's eyes slid to the name on her uniform shirt, Officer Monroe. She was shorter than him, with cropped dark brown hair and tanned skin. "You press?" she asked, an accusing, suspicious note to her voice.

Frederick laughed, but doubled back as Monroe's face darkened. "No, no of course not. I'm with Will. Will Graham?" He laughed again, this time nervously. "Just saw something else appeared to be going on and was curious? I'm waiting for him and—" His voice died as he saw the officer's expression. "Oh god, what?"

"Will Graham?" he asked. "What relation is he to you?"

"I—he's my—my boyfriend?" Frederick answered lamely. "What happened?" he asked unable to keep the note of anxiety out of his tone.

Monroe looked like she wanted to be anywhere else other than standing in front of Frederick. "He was shot ten minutes ago—"

And immediately, before Frederick could even think about what he was doing, he had slipped under the police tape and was striding towards the door where he had last seen Will enter.

"Hey, wait!"

Frederick felt a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off, practically running towards the building. He was nearly to the door when a second officer stepped in front of him. The second officer looked over his shoulder to Monroe, a questioning expression on his face.

"Let me through," Frederick nearly growled, glaring at the large man in front of him. The large officer placed a hand on his arm. "Jack Crawford—I know Jack Crawford," he remembered suddenly with a rush. "Listen, my boyfriend is in there shot and screw you if you're going to stop me from going in to see him." He slightly pushed the officer in front of him to the side as he strode through the doors. Monroe continued to follow him.

"What are you, my police escort?" Frederick hissed as he glanced down a hallway, unsure of where to go. He spun around, still panicking. "Since you're here, where? Where do I go?" he demanded irritably.

"Right, to your right! Listen it's not safe in here, especially to civilians, the suspect is still on the run—"

"So what you're telling me is you let him get away," Frederick hissed.

"Left," Monroe called out from behind him, ignoring his comment. Frederick obeyed turning into a room lit by several flood lights, which made the sight in the room stand out even more so in stark contrast. His heart sank as he walked quickly to kneel before Will, who was propped up slightly against a wall, breathing harshly. His face was pale and his eyes were closed. A large bandage stained red was tightly wrapped around the upper half of his torso. Jack stood next to him, and didn't look at the least surprised by Frederick's appearance in the room.

"An ambulance will be here in five minutes, Dr. Chilton," Jack said calmly. But as Frederick glanced up at him with disgust for a second, he could see he was still holding a gun.

"How could you let this happen? Do you have to repeatedly prove the FBI are miserable failures at doing their damn job? Is that part of your job description?"

Jack didn't even blink. "Will's just too good at his. He realized the suspect was still in the building and actually found him. We just didn't know he was still armed."

"Sure, you didn't even consider that the horrific mass-murderer might be armed. Brilliant work." His biting tone was somewhat negated as his voice began to waver. He couldn't look away from Will's unusually still body. He had been shot once near the shoulder, and even he, with only basic anatomy training, could see how close it came to the heart. Frederick hesitantly reached out to smooth Will's hair.

"We'll get him, Dr. Chilton," Jack said confidently above him.

Frederick shook his head, still preoccupied with smoothing Will's hair. "You better," he muttered darkly.

Monroe, who had been still hovering in the doorway, jumped slightly when static and then a voice sounded over the radio clipped to her uniform. "417, possible suspect sighting northeast hallway, calling backup, over."

Jack nodded to her, and he started to leave the room. "Wait!" Frederick stammered desperately. He looked up at Jack, who now stood in the doorway.

"You wanted us to catch him didn't you? Well that's what I'm about to do. Officer Monroe will stay here with you for when the paramedics arrive." And with that, he was gone.

Frederick hated waiting like this. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could help with, except wait. Monroe also looked like she wanted to be anywhere else other than babysitting them. Frederick reached down and tightly gripped Will's hand with his own, ignoring the sticky blood that was on it.

Seconds felt like hours, and Frederick kept glancing from the door to Will. The fear that had been clenching at his heart since he had first suspected something was wrong now sat heavy in his chest, eating away at his thoughts as he had nothing else to preoccupy his mind.

He was staring at Will's chest, anxiously watching it rise and fall, when Monroe abruptly gave a strangled cry and fell to the ground. Bemused, Frederick narrowed his eyes as he tried decide if she had fallen or tripped, when a figured appeared behind her, just outside the door. As she struggled to pull herself up and pull out her gun, the figure swiftly stepped into the light. The man was only slightly taller than Frederick, and if he had seen him on the street, he wouldn't have thought him threatening in any way. But here, in this room, the man's expression was cold, cut off from anything that could be considered human. Monroe had nearly stood up, her gun out of her holster, and she was turning to face him, but he was too quick, knocking the gun out of her hand, and slamming her against the wall.

Frederick felt frozen, as the man, the suspect who _was not supposed to be here_, snatched the gun and pointed it at Monroe, before he finally saw Frederick and Will at the back of the room. A smile stole across his face, chilling Frederick to his core as he stared down the barrel of the handgun.

He felt sick to his stomach, flashbacks from not too long ago overwhelming his mind. Against his every instinct, he shakily stood up, his hands in the air.

"That's a terrible idea," Frederick said condescendingly, his only defense against the fear he felt like he was drowning in, "shooting that gun now."

The man narrowed his eyes, but did not lower the gun or back away.

Hands still raised, Frederick slowly stepped to the side to stand in front of Will.

"There's no silencer on that gun. Right now, the police have no idea you're on this side of the building. Wouldn't want to ruin that perfectly good assumption would you?" Frederick took a step closer to the man, away from Will.

The man slightly lowered his gun, as if considering his words.

"Better just leave now and get out of the building while they're still on the wrong track. The FBI might be slow, but they're not that slow. They'll figure out eventually you're not where you should be, and then—"

With barely any time to react, the man flipped his hold on the gun, and Frederick took the full force of the butt of the weapon to the left side of his face. Shouting in pain, he doubled over, his hands clutching where the butt of the gun hit him. "Fuck," he muttered, breathing fast and blinking as he tried to overcome the pain. Every second this man stood in the doorway was time Will was losing, the ambulance had to be here soon, maybe it was here already, what if this—this murderer killed them or—or-

He slowly straightened up, looking the man in the eyes, trying to work up some determination to fight him, take him down, save Will, and then maybe, just maybe get some enjoyment out of this miserable failure of a date night.

And at that moment, as Frederick was contemplating his options, Monroe silently stood up behind the man and struck him in the head with something in her hand.

His hands still clutching his bleeding face, Frederick stuttered as the man immediately fell to the floor before him.

"Is that a brick, where did you get a brick?" Frederick asked wildly in disbelief.

She shrugged, and dropped the brick down beside him. Frederick stared, speechless, his mouth agape for several seconds before his mind caught up with him. "Will," he murmured, turning around to kneel back down beside Will. He was miraculously still breathing, and he could hear behind him Monroe radioing for help.

The paramedics finally arrived with a stretcher for Will, and Jack swooped into the room, trying to understand what had happened. As they lifted Will's still unconscious self onto the gurney, Frederick turned slowly to look back down at the man. Before he could stop himself, he kicked him, and then followed the paramedics out of the room with his head held high, ignoring Jack calling after him.

"Please tell me you didn't do that," Will said, nearly giggling.

Will was propped up on a hospital bed, finally awake after surgery, a white bandage on his shoulder peeking out under his gown. Frederick sat on a chair next to him, pulled as close as possible to the bed, a large grin on his face; he was enjoying the side-effects of Will's behavior due to whatever they had him on for the pain.

"Kick him? You bet I did. And he deserved it, the creep."

Will sniggered, and Frederick wished he was recording this. But he knew Will would not be pleased about it later, when he was not so heavily medicated. Instead, he would just appreciate it while he could.

"You're ridiculous."

"Only for you, Will." Frederick placed his hand over Will's, squeezing it lightly.

Both of them quieted then, the beeps and humming of the machines around Will filling the silence.

"Thank you," Will said finally, giving Frederick a small, warm smile.

Frederick tried, and failed, to stifle a noise of disbelief.

"What?" he asked, eyes scrunched in confusion.

Frederick shook his head as he looked away from Will to stare at the floor in front of him. He began absently drawing circles on Will's hand with his thumb.

"I—I didn't do _anything_. I never do. If you thank anyone, it should be that officer. Not me."

Will squeezed his hand back, causing Frederick to look back up at him.

"You did your part, Frederick, and I know if you hadn't been there, the situation would have been extremely different. Fate is a fickle thing, but you played it well today."

Frederick incredulously just shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever you say."

Will leaned over to softly kiss him on the lips. "Good, that will get you far in life."

Frederick leaned into the kiss, his smile finally returning. "Fine, but next date, you can't have your phone on."


End file.
